Dressing the KRMx01 Stand

I have lots of ideas about how I plan to finish the KRMx01 Stand. These include panels, trim, machinist drawers, breaker panel and some other stuff. This page will take some time to complete, but I will add sections to it as I get them done. Most likely, I will do some on the stand and then move to some other areas. Afterwards returning my attention to the stand. Anyway, I hope you check in once in a while and see what is happening to it. If you have any question, feel free to ask!

The State of the KRMx01 Stand Now

Here are some images showing what the machine stand looks like at this point. As you see, other than the computer rack with it's associated components, the stand is pretty bare. I have reached a point where I need to give the stand a little more attention. As more things are wired to the machine, it will make it difficult to cover the left side of the stand. As it stands I have the Monitor cable and power, router power and the stepper motor wires running to the rack. These wires will pass through the left side of the machine near the top back. So my first order of business is to fabricate the panel and any related parts the will go with it.

The Left Side Panel

First let's start with a good clear picture of what we have to work with. What you see here is the left side of the machine. All of the control wires and power for the external components of the machine will have to pass through this side. You can see the stepper motor wires passing through near the upper left corner. Hindsight they say is 20/20 and I have to agree. Having come this far knowing what I do now, I would have done a couple of things differently. First, I would have made my table from 2" square tubing. It would have provided me a means of connecting the rack components internally with the fasteners hidden. Second, I would have welded tabs onto the tubing to allow me to fasten the panels to it, keeping everything neat and tidy. However, this is what i have created and as a result, it is what I have to work with.

The Plan

The approach I have decided to take is to mount the panel to the uprights behind the angle with some 10-24 screws, washers, lock washers and nuts. Additionally, I will leave an area in the upper left as a separate panel that will be attached to the main panel. This will allow me to remove the main side panel and leave the wiring intact.

Cutting the panel

I have attached a group of pictures of the panel that i have cut out for the machine. The first image is of a top to a central air unit. A friend of mine is in the business and was kind enough to donate this material to me. It is heavy gauge steel and I am hoping it will be heavy and rigid enough that it will not make a lot of vibration noise. The second image shows the panel I cut from the larger piece. I cut this with a cut off wheel in my cheap 4" angle grinder.

Cleaning things up a bit

With the panel cut out, I had a bit of a mess to clean up. The air conditioning panel that I used to cut this from had insulation glued to the underside. Pealing the insulation wasn't too bad of a job, but the glue that was used to stick it down was another story. These two images tell the story. There was gobs of glue holding down the insulation. I used my air-sander and went at it. This took me a while. My compressor is kind of small and i had to let it catch up several times.

Doing a Test Fit

With the glue sanded off it was time to make a test fit of the material. I noticed two things off the bat. First, the material bowed a little and second it was about a half inch too long. I had to flex the material to get it in place. Other than that, I felt like it would work fine. If you look at the image, you will see that the wires are tucked in the upper left corner. Now it's time to remove the panel and do something about the wires.

Wire Access and Bracing

In the first image you see the panel with the corner cut from it. I will use this little panel to mount my grommets in to pass the wires through. The other two pieces of metal will be spot welded to this little panel to give something for the large panels to rest against and fasten to. Finally, in the second picture, you see that I added a couple pieces of 3/4" aluminum angle to the panel to stiffen it up a bit and to take out the slight bow that I had.

Mounting the Panel

Here the panel has been fastened into place. I used 10-24 x 3/4" machine screws to fasten the panel. I placed a washer on the screw, inserted it then added another washer, lock washer and nut. The panel will stay here until the wire pass through panel has been completed and mounted. This was I know everything fits where it should. After all the fabrication and fitting is done, I will pull it all apart for a coat of paint.

The Wire Pass Through Panel

I thought I would try out my home made spot welder to spot weld some edges that I could attach to on the wire pass through panel. Recall that I made the side and pass through panel from 16 gauge steel. The first image show a spot weld in action. As Paris Hilton would say, "That's Hot!" The next image show the progress on the spot welds. Now I have to pass this along. I made this spot welder from an old microwave oven transformer, and for smaller gauge metal worked wonderful. With this thicker metal, I was unable to get enough penetration on the weld to make it usable. As a matter of fact, I broke them when drilling hole for the attachment bolts. So that brings us to the last photo. Here you see the pass through panel attached to the side panel. The four grommets you see are 50mm (2 inches). The holes were cut with a hole saw. Next, I need to remove all this from the machine, braze the nuts to the sheet metal, get it painted up add some edge trim. That comes next.